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PRESENTATION ARCHIVES
English
  N° 120  
Issue 4 2009  
Alcoa re-Revisited: Recycling, Market Power and Environmental Policy  
Jean De Beir
Guillaume Girmens
 
This article incorporates an environmental dimension into the study of markets characterised by producers of a primary good in a position of market power over a sector of recycling. In the model used, production of the primary good by a monopolistic firm is polluting, whereas production of the recycled good is not. Taxing the monopolistic firm allows to reduce pollution, at the price of a reduction in the total quantity of good produced. The effect of a subsidy for recycling depends on the slopes of the demand curve and of the recycler's supply curve. It is ambiguous in terms of welfare, but it always encourages recycling.

Abstract

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Recycling; market power; environmental externalities; environmental policy Keywords
D42; D62; H23; Q53 JEL classification
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